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Over the past two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has witnessed a number of economic crises that have threatened progress towards reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. These crises reflect the increased risks associated with globalization, especially for the poor and those without voice. In addition, several countries in Asia and the Pacific have been profoundly affected by high-impact natural disasters which have exposed vulnerabilities and amplified the insecurities of many people’s livelihoods.

This paper analyses the effect of public and private health expenditures on the achievement of health-related MDGs. It finds that three quarters of the variation of health-related MDG indicators can be explained by public and private health expenditure per capita when controlling for levels of income and demographic factors such as age dependency ratio, urbanization and population density. In addition, the analysis finds that marginal gain in health performance is higher for countries with low per capita public health expenditures.

This paper estimates the impact of the high food prices of 2010 on income poverty and the achievement of MDG 1 in Asia and the Pacific. It also estimates the impacts of high price during 2011 under various scenarios for the prices of food and oil. We find that although the high food prices of 2010 have not caused an increase in poverty in the region, they slowed down the rate of poverty reduction - the estimated number of poor decreased by 24.5 million people between 2009 and 2010, compared with 43.8 million people if staple food prices had not increased above domestic rates of inflation.

Since 2008, the Environment and Development Division has been promoting the concept of eco-efficiency in infrastructure development as one of key tracks to shift towards green growth in support of a green economy. A series of activities to enhance understanding of policymakers on eco-efficient infrastructure were conducted.

The movement of goods and services across borders has gradually been liberalized over the past few decades, thanks in large part to multilateral legal frameworks negotiated in global fora such as the World Trade Organization. In contrast, the movement of people across borders remains severely restricted worldwide.

The economies of Asia and the Pacific recovered strongly in 2010 from the depths of the “Great Recession”
of 2008/09 but they face fresh challenges in 2011. These include the return of food and fuel crises that are
threatening hard-won development gains, sluggish recovery in the advanced economies, and a deluge of shortterm
capital flows that in turn is leading to volatility in capital markets, the build-up of asset bubbles and the
appreciation of exchange rates. Furthermore, the devastation wrought by the recent earthquake and tsunami in

A listing of ESCAP meeting papers and official documents produced by substantive divisions in the year 2010. Wherever possible, in the Document Symbol Index, the document symbols link directly to the Official Document System of the United Nations (ODS).

Asia-Pacific region has emerged as the growth pole of the world economy over the past decade.However, in the aftermath of global financial crisis, sustaining the dynamism of Asia-Pacific economies would require a rebalancing in favour of greater domestic consumption and exploiting the potential of regional economic integration.

Catastrophes caused by natural hazards that hit “without warning” serve as grim reminders of the challenge that governments and civil society face in identifying and protecting the areas that are at risk of extreme events. This paper presents a methodology to estimate the threshold of social and economic impact of disasters that indicate events that were the manifestation of high levels of risk. It shows the result of the application of the methodology to Desinventar dataset, which covers 20 countries/regions, and the change in the level of the threshold in the past forty years.

The Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report (APTIR) is a recurrent publication prepared by the Trade and Investment Division. It aims to deepen understanding of regional trends and developments in trade and investment; emerging issues in trade, investment and trade facilitation policies; and impacts of these policies on countries’ abilities to meet the challenges of achieving inclusive and sustainable development.